Ken Borland

Six IPL teams are in the shake-up for ownership of the six franchises that will play in Cricket South Africa’s new T20 tournament early next year, CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki has confirmed.

The proposed tournament, which is co-owned by CSA, SuperSport and former IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman, is eager to target the lucrative Indian market.

“There are big things planned for our T20 league and six IPL teams have submitted bids to invest in a franchise, as well as other Indian investors and teams from the Pakistan Super League,” Moseki told Saturday Citizen.

“The global interest has exploded and we’ve had almost 30 Expressions of Interest received. An independent service provider, which is one of the big four global audit firms, will do an evaluation of all the bids.

“This T20 league is quite key to our sustainability going forward and we have a long-term plan along with our partner SuperSport,” Moseki said.

While the unveiling of who the successful bidders are could still take a little while, CSA are expected to announce the appointments of new executive staff like the director of cricket, chief financial officer and chief commercial officer, in the next week or so.

The new T20 competition is scheduled to start on January 12, and CSA are so determined to ensure their Proteas stars are there from the start that they have requested the postponement of the ODI leg of their tour to Australia.

“In terms of the FTP and big tours involving Australia and England, we’ve had to manage some challenges,” Moseki said. “But we’ve cleared our January schedule from 2024 on and want to make the best we can of this tournament.

“When we started our planning in November last year, most of our first meeting was about the scheduling. We considered November and December, and February as well, but January is best.

“There are exams in November and it can’t be December because that would be terrible for our international commitments. It is just the nature of the calendar that you are always competing against someone. Just not the IPL because no-one can compete against them.

“We knew there was talk about the Emirates T20 targeting that January window as well, but we back ourselves. In January, South Africans are still in holiday mode, the varsities haven’t opened yet,” Moseki pointed out.

IRENE, City of Tshwane – Sunshine Tour rookie Ryan van Velzen roared to a marvellous eight-under-par 64 at Irene Country Club on Friday to claim a one-stroke lead after the first round of the KitKat Group ProAm, the R1 million tournament being held for the second time after flooding washed out the tournament in February.

The 21-year-old Van Velzen, playing just his fifth Sunshine Tour event, was particularly rampant on the par-fours, picking up six of his eight birdies there, to go with birdies on the par-five 10^th and 17^th holes. It was also a bogey-free round for the Benoni golfer, who won his card from the Big Easy Tour in January.

“I’m really happy and I played really nicely, hitting the ball good and close and making the putts,” Van Velzen said after racing past his previous best Tour round of 68.

“I drove the ball straight most of the day, I didn’t miss many fairways and my iron play was really good. I was surprised how good the greens were after all the rain and flooding earlier in the year.

“The course is in really good shape and you have to hit it straight off the tee because of all the trees. And the greens were pretty quick so you didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the hole,” Van Velzen said.

The former GolfRSA squad member was on the right side of most things on Friday, including an extraordinary tussle for top spot on the leaderboard that he eventually won.

Dylan Mostert finished just one stroke back after a brilliant 65, converting a great start after he was three-under through five holes.

Merrick Bremner, Ockie Strydom and JJ Senekal made the early running with their five-under-par 67s, but endured the frustration of watching the leading duo sweep past them in the afternoon, as well as the in-form Louis Albertse, Malcolm Mitchell and Keagan Thomas, who all shot 66s.

Rourke van der Spuy, who drank from the champagne bottle a week ago when he won the SunBet Challenge hosted by Sun City, was also part of the bottleneck at the top as he started on the 10^th tee and moved to four-under-par after his birdie on the third hole. But the aggressive 32-year-old did not quite have the finish he intended as he then bogeyed the par-four sixth and made pars the rest of the way in to finish with a 69.

Five South Africans are going to be teeing it up at the Masters tournament at Augusta from Thursday, but the bad news is that all but one of them have been going in the wrong direction in the world rankings and will be entering the first, and arguably most prestigious, Major of the year without good form behind them.

Erik van Rooyen is the South African golfer enjoying the best year thus far, playing with reasonable consistency to move from 65^th in the rankings at the start of the year to 62^nd at present, with five top-30 finishes in eight tournaments. His best performance came in the Dubai Desert Classic when he tied for fourth, so he at least carries some momentum into the tournament and is considered a dark horse in some quarters, even with that weird facial hair.

Louis Oosthuizen is always the South African golfer who attracts the most attention, especially given his stellar record in Majors, but this week he will be having more eyes than ever in his general direction because he is going to be playing in the same three-ball as Tiger Woods, who is making a dramatic return to golf following his serious car accident 14 months ago in which he suffered serious leg injuries.

Oosthuizen is typically under-the-radar leading into Majors, and has slipped from 13^th to 15^th in the world, with two top-30 finishes in only five events. But South Africa’s highest-ranked golfer had an outstanding 2021 in the Majors, finishing tied-third, second, tied-second and tied-26^th in the Masters. He was the runner-up at Augusta in 2012, famously won by Bubba Watson.

Charl Schwartzel is another former champion who is going to be playing this week, but the 2011 winner has dropped to 169^th in the world rankings and has missed the cut in his last six tournaments. He did, however, finish third in the 2017 Masters.

Garrick Higgo is another South African who is hoping to overcome a run of bad form as he has missed his last three cuts. In fact he has not finished in the top-20 since his breakthrough win at the Palmetto Championship last year.

The fifth South African, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, is at least going to the Masters with some reasonable form behind him, finishing in the top-30 four times in nine events this year. He made the cut in both his previous starts at Augusta.

Scottie Scheffler is the new No.1 golfer in the world and the hottest competitor coming in, but he will be challenged strongly in the tipping stakes by Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka.

Cameron Smith and Xander Schauffele are dark horses in the 90-stroing field, while one can never discount Dustin Johnson.

Former New Zealand captain Sean Fitzpatrick is willing to endorse the Six Nations as the best tournament in rugby outside of the World Cup, but the All Blacks great believes it would be a terrible idea for South Africa to join that Northern Hemisphere competition.

Speculation has been rife recently that the world champion Springboks will follow their domestic franchises into European rugby, breaking from their traditional Sanzaar alliance with New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, and joining France, Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, and maybe Italy, in a new-look Six Nations.

“The Six Nations is arguably the best tournament outside the World Cup,” Fitzpatrick told a Laureus World Sports Academy media opportunity on Wednesday. “The first three rounds have been compelling viewing.

“There has obviously been a lot of talk in New Zealand and up north about South Africa joining, but why add to something when it is not broken? I don’t like the idea of Southern Hemisphere teams in the Six Nations because the history of the competition is Northern Hemisphere.

“And I don’t think the Southern Hemisphere can afford to lose South Africa from the Rugby Championship, it will be devastating to lose them. If they join, it would be a Seven Nations because Italy can’t just be ejected, they have a right of veto.

“So starting a new competition would add a pretty big new international window. It would be a sad day for rugby,” Fitzpatrick said.

The current form of the All Blacks has many of their fans already having kittens, but the chairman of the Laureus World Sport Academy said he was confident they were on track, while acknowledging the demise of the old Super Rugby competition that included South Africa has hurt them.

“Ian Foster [head coach] knows where he is going for sure,” Fitzpatrick said. “Traditionally the All Blacks have not worked on four-year cycles, they try and win every year.

“But I think this time they are building for the World Cup. The results have been disappointing but Ian has exposed a lot of players to international rugby. In 2019 they were exposed a bit in the heat of World Cup battle.

“Super Rugby has not turned out to be the competition it should be. Super Rugby Aoteroa in 2020 was fantastic, everyone loved it, coming back to New Zealand, it was very tribal.

“But last year was different and we’ve missed South Africa. Super 12 was such a good product, but they got greedy going to 14, 16, 18 teams and it blew out because it was unsustainable,” Fitzpatrick said.